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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/26/movies/tim-curry-dead.html

Tim Curry, Star of rCyRocky HorrorrCO and Much More, Dies at 80

The actorrCOs gift for garish eccentricity was indelibly appropriate for the outlandish, cross-dressing mad scientist Frank-N-Furter.

By Bruce Weber
Aug. 26, 2026
Updated 12:51 p.m. ET
Tim Curry, the British-born actor whose gift for garish eccentricity lit
up stage and screen, most notably as the outlandish, cross-dressing mad scientist in the midnight cult film rCLThe Rocky Horror Picture Show,rCY died on Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 80.

The death was confirmed by Marcia Hurwitz, his longtime agent and manager.
In 2012, Mr. Curry suffered a serious stroke, from which, he said last
year, rCLIrCOve been recovering for quite a long time.rCY

With a mischief-makerrCOs good looks, a casual athletic grace and a supple
and resonant voice, Mr. Curry was a favorite in roles calling for
expressive villainy or general cartoonishness.

In the first screen version of rCLAnnierCY (1982), he brought more than a dollop of slime to the part of Rooster Hannigan, the con artist who
concocts a plot to kidnap the plucky orphan of the title. In rCLCluerCY (1985), a suspense spoof derived from the popular board game, he played Wadsworth, a logorrheic butler who leads a cast full of murder suspects
around a spooky mansion with the fast-talking fervor of a manic Sherlock Holmes.

In rCLSpamalot,rCY the stage musical based on the Monty Python trouperCOs bottomlessly goofy retelling of the King Arthur legend, which opened on Broadway in 2005, he played Arthur himself and was nominated for a Tony
Award.

It was the most straight-faced role in the show, and yet, as Ben Brantley wrote in his review in The New York Times, he was rCLthe best of the cast at translating classic Python style into a musical-comedy idiom.rCY

But no other role marked Mr. CurryrCOs career as emphatically as that of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the rCLsweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania,rCY as he proclaimed himself in rCLThe Rocky Horror Picture Show.rCY

The 1975 screen adaptation of rCLThe Rocky Horror ShowrCY was based on the hit London stage musical that played for seven years in different theaters,
and in which Mr. Curry originated the part in 1973. He also starred in the premiere American production in Los Angeles in 1974 and on Broadway in
1975, where it was a notable flop, closing after 45 performances.

A gleefully lurid sendup of the horror and science fiction genres, rCLRocky HorrorrCY tells the story of a clean-cut couple with a flat tire on a rainy night that leaves them at the home of the good doctor, whose scientific
work involves the creation of a monster with a muscular body and a
handsome face as a sexy plaything for himself. The movie became a cult hit shown at midnight around the world for fans who dress in costume and sing along; it celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2025, and the stage show
returned to Broadway earlier this year.

Mr. CurryrCOs performance opened many casting doors, and his Frank-N-Furter was the first of many threatening bad guys he played, finding a variety of hues rCo arch or giddy or resonantly mean rCo with which to color their evildoing.

They included Darkness, the embodiment of bass-voiced evil, in Ridley ScottrCOs 1985 horror fantasy rCLLegendrCY; Pennywise, a murderous demon posing
as a clown, in the 1990 mini-series adapted from Stephen KingrCOs mammoth horror novel rCLItrCY; and Cardinal Richelieu in rCLThe Three MusketeersrCY (1993). As a greedy gazillionaire presumed to be the chief malefactor in rCLCharlierCOs Angels,rCY the 2000 movie adaptation of the television series about three female detectives, Mr. Curry laid on the oily self-
satisfaction until the moment he was killed by the real villain.

Appearing on Broadway in 1980 in rCLAmadeus,rCY Peter ShafferrCOs portrayal of the rivalry between the Hapsburg court composer Antonio Salieri (Ian
McKellen) and the upstart genius Mozart, Mr. Curry introduced American audiences to Mr. ShafferrCOs shocking depiction of one of historyrCOs most gifted composers as a vulgar libertine.

rCLItrCOs a marvelous role to play,rCY Mr. Curry told The Times. rCLIt has such a
terrific arc. Mozart starts out as an energetic little punk and ends up as
a truly tragic figure. So you get to go from high comedy to tragedy. This
kind of role is a gift.rCY

The play won a Tony; Mr. Curry was nominated for best actor, but lost to
his castmate, Mr. McKellen. (In Milos FormanrCOs Oscar-winning 1984 film version, Salieri was played by F. Murray Abraham and Mozart by Tom Hulce.)

The Mozart depicted in the production, Frank Rich wrote in his Times
review, was not rCLtruly despicable, at least as delineated in the impressively fine-tuned performance by the braying yet sensitive Mr.
Curry.rCY

His voice was perhaps the staunchest aspect of Mr. CurryrCOs talent. He may have been even more prolific as a disembodied performer rCo often giving
voice to anthropomorphic animals rCo than he was in the flesh.

In rCLValiantrCY (2005), an animated feature set during an ornithological version of World War II, he was the intimidating General Von Talon, a hook-billed hawk wearing an eye patch. He played a haughty gray cat named Fluffy with an imperious French accent in rCLA TurtlerCOs Tale: SammyrCOs AdventuresrCY (2010), and Terrence, a flamboyantly expressive toucan with a multihued beak, in rCLRibbitrCY (2014), the story of an insecure tree frog.

Timothy James Curry was born on April 19, 1946, in Grappenhall, England.
His father, Jim, was a Methodist chaplain in the British Navy; his mother, Maura Patricia (Langmead) Curry, was a secretary.

Radio was his prime source of entertainment as a child rCo he said that was why voice work later intrigued him rCo and he sang in a church choir as a
boy soprano.

He was 12 when his father died. rCLBy the time I was 15 or so, I knew that acting was what I wanted to do,rCY he told The Washington Post in 1988. rCLAnd then I spent a long time trying to talk myself out of it, because
everybody else was trying to. Particularly my widowed mother, who didnrCOt have very much money. She would have preferred a secure profession for me,
and quite rightly, I guess, from her point of view.rCY

He acted in school and attended the University of Birmingham, graduating
in 1968, before moving to London, where he earned a place in a new
musical, rCLHair.rCY He appeared in other productions in London and Glasgow before being cast in rCLRocky Horror.rCY

rCLI couldnrCOt make up my mind whether to be a singer or an actor,rCY he told The Los Angeles Times in 1974. rCLAlthough in rCyHairrCO they never let me sing
that much, because the score was fairly high and I didnrCOt have a high
enough voice.rCY

He added: rCLI was offered things, recording contracts, offered to join groups. But as I thought about it, I got rather snippy. No, no, no, I
decided, I want to be an actor.rCY

In the late 1970s and early rCO80s, Mr. Curry had a brief run as a rock singer, with limited success rCo although the second of his three albums, rCLFearless,rCY reached No. 53 on the Billboard chart in 1979 rCo before returning to the stage in London in 1982 as the Pirate King in rCLThe
Pirates of Penzance.rCY

His other theater roles included Tristan Tzara, the Dadaist writer, in Tom StoppardrCOs rCLTravesties,rCY in London and on Broadway in the mid-1970s; Alan
Swann, the onetime movie star who has become a swaggering, comic
reprobate, in the Broadway musical version of the film rCLMy Favorite Year,rCY which earned Mr. Curry his third Tony nomination; and, in 2001, Ebenezer Scrooge in the extravagant Madison Square Garden holiday production of rCLA Christmas Carol.rCY

Mr. Curry never married and resolutely declined to discuss his private
life.

rCLI guarantee you, if it matters, that I have experienced true love, true heartbreak and everything in between, including no small amount of wreckage,rCY he wrote in his 2025 memoir, rCLVagabond.rCY rCLWhich, naturally, helps inform who I am. I have loved and been loved and I hope you have,
too. But IrCOm not interested in your romances.rCY

Information on his survivors was not immediately available.

When Fox aired a new made-for-TV version of rCLThe Rocky Horror Picture ShowrCY in 2016, Mr. Curry had a small part as the narrator; Laverne Cox played Frank-N-Furter. Although the mad doctor would become Mr. CurryrCOs signature role, he initially had doubts about taking it.

rCLI was hesitant in that, if it worked, it might be a difficult image to shake off,rCY he said in a television interview in England just as rCLThe Rocky Horror Picture ShowrCY was opening in 1975. rCLBut then, really, IrCOve always thought it wasnrCOt worth doing unless you took a risk, really. So I just took the risk.rCY

Forty years later, when he received a lifetime achievement award from the Actors Fund, Los Angeles magazine asked him to reflect on his career-
making role. How did he look at it in retrospect?

rCLWith a sort of bemused tolerance,rCY he said. rCLItrCOs neither a blessing nor
a curse. I was lucky to get it.rCY
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